Against as it seems all the good "junk mail" (i.e. Williams-Sonoma, Restoration Hardware, & Crate & Barrel catalogs) always come in Saturday's mail, and it's the only day I really have to sit down and actually read them.

Also, a friend of mine's husband is a postal worker and I'd hate to see his job in jeopardy.

Ambivalent. But does it result in a pay cut for mail carriers? If so, I would feel bad. If not, I don't care one way or the other about mail on a Saturday. All I get is ads anyway. How can I opt out of that stupid penny saver?!

I don't get the hate for the USPS. People like making fun of them and complaining about them, but tell me one other company that will send a letter anywhere in the country for less than 50 cents. Not only di they provide reasonably priced services for the masses, but it is part of the constitution. Karen, I usually agree with what you have to say, but the notion of getting rid of the postal service entirely is something I wholeheartedly disagree with.

Against. IN THIS ECONOMY (half kidding) I'm not comfortable with USPS so publicly downsizing."Rain,sleet,snow" and all that stuff, it's an institution! What's next, outsourcing? Will I be getting calls from a different country reading my birthday cards to me over the phone?

(Wow, I like my new cough medicine. It assists me in making little to no sense)

All I know is that the USPS loses quite a bit of our mail – they routinely lose bills, checks to our business and even with certified, registered mail don't bother coming to the door if they don't feel like it (a direct quote from a mail carrier who didn't come to the door with a $3600 check sent certified & registered) I caught her as she turned around in our cul-de-sac and those were her exact words). So I'm not too sympathetic to the USPS.

I am all for stopping Saturday mail service. There is very little benefit to requiring all of those workers to be around on the weekend to process things they could do during the week. Our post office is probably getting shut down here, too. I am pretty happy about that, since it means we can get mail service to our house. We hardly ever use the post office, anyway.

@SusanB, sounds like you have a lazy mailman. You should report her for not doing her job properly. My mailman goes up the stairs to our front door (everyone on or block has them too) without complaining and is quite lovely. I can't fathom having someone else in his place.

@LottaColada – I've complained several times to the branch manager and all I get is "She's usually so good – I don't understand." We even wrote the Congressional postal service commission – to Henry Waxman who was (don't know if still is) chairman) and a Florida congressman on the committee. Didn't get the courtesy of a response from either. We've switched as much of our business as possible to e-mail or FedEx. I get as many of our bills e-mailed as possible since the post office "lost" our Florida Power & Light bill a few months ago. I realize something like the USPS is a necessity but they need to do something about the horrible service.

In a nutshell, the USPS is a self sufficient entity (meaning it funds itself and doesn't use tax dollars). About 10ish? years ago, the Republican led Congress passed legislation that the changed the way the USPS funds its pension program by requiring it to "pre" fund it to the year 2040 or something. As you might imagine, that requires billions in up front funding which has quickly drained the surplus they had. Until now, they have been able to juggle things, cut hours, furlough people, etc. but they are getting ready to default on a huge required payment.

Un told this law was passed, the USPS was one of the few government entities that operated in the black. One of the theories behind why the Congress passed these laws is because they want to bleed the USPS into oblivion so that the private sector can take over. The private sector will never turn a profit, though, delivering to every out of the way address in this country.

There is some talk that since the USPS is part of a constitutional mandate that the post master general has no right to change service and that if they end up bankrupt the government will have to find another way to fund it.

And yes, package delivery will continue since it is one of the most profitable sectors of their business.

*not all of these dates and figures may be accurate as I'm coasting on my sometimes sketchy memory.

The USPS is in bad financial shape because of a manufactured crisis. In 2006 Congress passed a law, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA ) which "stipulates that the USPS is to make payments of $5.4 – $5.8 billion into the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund each year, from 2007 to 2016 in order to prefund 75 years of estimated costs." This sort of nonsense is unheard of in any other company, public or private. It is fully intended to bankrupt the USPS.

Personally, I have found the USPS to be generally terrific in terms of service, especially in light of the abritrary onerous mandates they are under, and I will miss Saturday service.

For it, they need to do something or there will be no mail service soon.

And all that junk mail everyone is complaining about, that is pretty much what is keeping the USPS going right now.

First class mail is at on all time low. Between email, e-vites, online bill pay, people just don't used the mail like they used to. So while revenue is dropping expenses keep rising, gas, health care, pensions.

Normally have a great experience, the only time it can get tricky, well more misleading is when I ship overseas. If you send a package overseas it says 6-10 days, which is misleading. Because it is 6-10 days to that country and then however long it takes the country to deliver it.

So if I have a work package that I need there timely I do Fed Ex or UPS.

But if you look at the website it says delivery time 6-10 days. But really it can take weeks.

But then again it is way cheaper than Fed Ex or UPS. What costs me 200.00 for the USPS would be 1000 for the other 2.

Totally against. Big business is trying to kill the USPS. First it was the law passed in 2006 forcing the USPS to overpay their pension fund to the tune of $75 billion in advance (a classic poison pill). They're also banned from competing against private companies for obvious fits, like internet services, banking, etc. And now this cutting of Saturday delivery–its single market advantage over the for-profit competitors–which helps clear the way for FedEx to increase its market share. I'm pretty sure people won't realize what they've lost until they can no longer send a letter for fifty cents once FedEx takes over and starts charging $10 or $15. This great American tradition, started by Benjamin Franklin, deserves to be strengthened and maintained, not strangled.

I agree with Lola, Susan. File a complaint. I bet you can do it online. I've only had really great carriers who genuinely enjoy and care about their jobs. My husband worked for USPS while in college and my small business is dependent on them. I think there's bad apples in every profession but as far as govt jobs go, USPS has a low rate of corruption.

I appreciate all the advise, but we have filed complaints. They just don't give a damn. Another example – we had a package of legal papers to send out of state. I took them to the post office, they weighed, etc the package, put the postage on themselves – a month later we got the package back – it was refused for insufficient postage. Sorry – I just can't care about the post office any more.

@Lola and @frivolity you said it before I could, and well. I disdain the call to privatize the USPS because all that means is "turn it into a profit-making machine to line someone's pockets." (Thinking of the whole "military contractor" aspect.) The whole pre-fund pensions for workers who have not even been BORN yet (when this is not required of any other agency) is a clearly an attempt to weaken the USPS in order to make it easier to dismantle then privatize (and pick like a vulture on its bones). GRAR! 🙂

Mail delivery on Saturday doesn't really matter to me. Politics aside, cutting back on the days of mail delivery is no different than companies going to a 4 day work week. It's a financial thing. How many of us actually get stuff worth getting in the mail anyway? Bills, paychecks, etc, can all be done electronically. Netflix, however, does come through the mail, and on Saturdays. It could be a long winter next year if I don't get the calendar figured out better!Seriously, though, I am totally on the fence. I just don't care.

I don't mind them stopping delivery, however I hope they actually keep the office open on Saturdays. Sometimes, I need to mail or pick up something from the p.o. direct & Saturday is the most convenient day.

I could care less. I don't get anything in the mail anyway. I go out to my mailbox about once a week and throw away all the junk mail that's been crammed into the box, letters wadded up to make room for the advertising fliers.

I've had the bad mail carriers too. A few years back I had one that was fond of sending my mail back without delivering it. This wouldn't bother me if it were the catalogs and advertisements, but it was things like my absentee ballot, notices from the Social Security Administration (which turned out to be a nightmare – because the letter was returned, they decided they didn't have my proper address and were going to stop benefits – even though they were paid directly into my bank account and not mailed – and their computers couldn't seem to recognize my new address since it was my old address). You can complain but they just don't care.

For, and think they should cut it further to every other day saving even more money. Electronic mail has pretty much replaced snail mail anyways. Packages should still be delivered Monday – Saturday however.

I'm going to backtrack a little on my previous statement now that I've read some comments and did a little research; in my experience, companies like FedEx and UPS are much more reliable than the USPS. I think that it's because the USPS deals with such a larger amount of mail that things fall through the cracks.

In general, I think that more competition between companies helps the consumers. The idea of USPS competing with UPS and FedEx is interesting to me–who wins?

I don't know that privatizing would actually work–in most respects, the USPS runs very well and I don't know how other companies could manage everyday delivery to the entire US. Most of my feelings were based on the fact that I'm just annoyed by the USPS whenever I have to use them.

As long as the post office is still open on Saturday, I don't mind not having Saturday delivery. I think this has been a long time coming and I'd always heard the USPS has been on the brink of bankrupcty for awhile now.

I actually just learned what Lola and Frivolity mentioned whilst standing in line at the post office one day. For the most part, I haven't had issues with them. I have heard horror stories, like SusanB's. I started giving our postal carrier a small "gift" around the holidays a few years ago and I notice that I get better service from them than the UPS/FedEx carriers (who are often to lazy to climb the steps to our covered porch and opt to leave the packages out in the rain).

@Silly Girl – I ship things quite a bit using USPS and they do offer traceability. Just like UPS/FedEx, you get a tracking number where you can see when it is delivered. I do it all the time w/ my eBay shipments.

Against. What I am for is Congress repealing the 2006 law they passed specifically for the purpose of destroying the previously thriving USPS so that we would be forced to have privatization of the mail.

Cutting Saturday delivery makes a lot of sense. Currently, they need 6 people to cover 5 delivery routes. 5 people cover 5 days of the regular routes. The 6th person picks up the 6th day of each of the 5 routes. Cut the 6th person, move the other 5 delivery people to a M-F schedule, and you can reduce delivery staff by 16% without a major impact to most people.

I'm so old, I remember when we used to have TWO mail deliveries every day. As to the cutting out the Saturday delivery, I can't even remember the last time I got something delivered on Saturday, so I'm all for it if it will stop the postage increases very year.

I had an injury a few years ago and was homebound for most of 3 yrs –and I lived and died by the mail–we have local grocery delivery–but everything else I needed I did by mail. I appreciate the USPS and if it makes them more viable–then it is ok to not deliver Saturday. I wish the would make it so if they don't deliver, you could go to the PO on Sat am and pick something up if you were expecting it. Our post office is open Saturday mornings and if I knew a packaged had arrived–I would not mind running over and picking it up.

Against. The world doesn't stop on Saturday so why should the mail. There have been several times where I was waiting on a package or check so I could pay bills, put gas in my car, or eat and would just be shit out of luck until Monday.

Texas shuts down almost everything on Sunday, don't take Saturday away from us as well.

@Silly girl, my post office always offers a tracking number for a fee. What is going on with these stories…. I must have the good post office that no one thinks exists. I can't believe so many people have issues with USPS.

Against, simply because it's Congress who created this problem by making the Post Office prefund it's pension for 75 years, in one decade. And, Congress won't let them do other things that would allow them to be more competitive with UPS and Fed Ex (thanks to a huge lobbying effort by, guess who?). I also think this is an effort to sell off land owned by the Post Office for commercial development.

As always I'm late to the party.. My question.. If they are still going to do Saturday delivery of packages then don't they have to 'staff' drivers anyway? How will they know that a certain route in a certain city will/will not get a package picked up and delivered? Which I assume then requires staffing at distribution centers. I guess I'm trying to figure out where (read:which jobs impacted) the actual 'cut' takes place.

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